1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to building structures. More particularly, it concerns a modular construction system, especially one which can serve to form load-bearing horizontal surfaces such as floor or roofs.
2. Prior Art
Typically, modern-day building processes are a set of loosely organized but highly interrelated operations. A simple residential or commercial structure consists of tens of thousands of individual pieces. The number, complexity, and variety of these pieces highly impact both the design and the construction processes.
In the design, each component must be drawn, detailed and specified. This design takes a large amount of time. With a large number of elements, the interactions among them become almost overwhelming. Moreover, the responsibilities and liabilities for lack of integration of any element in the design are enormous.
In construction, each piece must be handled in some fashion--in many cases, many times. This means that tens of thousands of small operations are involved in the construction process. The net result of this is that the resultant building is both labor- and material-intensive.
Because of the number and variety of operations, the labor involved must have various levels of skill and must be supervised to a large extent.
Another problem with current construction methods is that there is a heavy dependence on the use of heavy parts to carry structural loads. Generally these heavy parts may be heavy timbers, trusses, steel beams, or concrete structures. These part require special machinery to build, special vehicles to deliver, and special equipment to erect. This leads to heavy dependent on heavy equipment such as cranes, forklifts, and special trucks. This heavy equipment use can give rise to liability, can complicate the planning and implementation of a sequential build process, and, in many cases, may be especially difficult because of limitations of the site which make it difficult or unsafe to use heavy equipment.
These difficulties with conventional modern construction processes has led to the development of quite a number of modular construction systems. These systems are characterized by prefabricating certain elements of the building, typically off-site, so that on-site construction can be speeded and carried out with a minimum of difficulty.
Representative disclosures in the patent literature to preframed or prefabricated construction components include, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 723,163, issued Mar. 7, 1903, to Gustav Knochenhauer, Which is directed to a preformed frame structure for horizontal hot beds, forcing-frames, and the like. U.S. Pat. No. 1,723,284, issued Aug. 13, 1929, to Michael Imshenetsky, relates to a modular form structure for building construction in which a plurality of surfacing members are secured into a surface and then the surface is overlaid with cement. In this system the various surfacing members are held in alignment by a series of clamps and tensioning rods.
In U.S. Pat. No. 2,877,877, issued on Mar. 17, 1959, to Hugh Davis, a modular system is provided for constructing metallic panel walls. In this system preformed modular panels are arranged and held together by corner brackets and by a prefabricated latch-together frame system. More directly in point to the present invention, U.S. Pat. No. 3,173,226, issued on Mar. 16, 1965, to Abraham Solnick, discloses a method for unitary construction of floors and roofs wherein standardized units of precast concrete are assembled together with reinforcing steel rods and channels in interlocking relationship to form a floor or roof of any designated size, shape or strength.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,369,334, issued Feb. 20, 1968, to Ralph Berg, discloses a building system which uses preformed, reinforced concrete structural units adapted to be joined together under pressure for the erection and construction of buildings, bridges and the like. This system uses a series of reinforcing rods and special connectors to effect fabrication. Turning to U.S. Pat. No. 3,824,754, issued on Jul. 23, 1974, to Albert Fatosme et al., another prefabricated building structure made of standardized components is shown. This system is based upon a premade metal framework into which standardized planks are inserted to give rise to a modular floor structure. Another example of prior work is seen in U.S. Pat. No. 4,161,089, issued Jul. 17, 1979, to Martin Omansky. This patent shows a modular building structure system for forming vertical walls, particularly useful for building handball or racketball courts, or other like sporting structures. Another example of a modular system is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,294,051, issued Oct. 13, 1981, to William Hughes. This system employs a multiplicity of like panels secured to several parallel pairs of internal transverse members which define an internal horizontal passage from one edge of the panel to the other such that, in assembled relationship, the passages of adjacent panels are in alignment. In addition, the panels may be held together with metal cables or rods which pass through the aligned passages in the panels and are anchored to each end of the constructed surface. While all of these representative prior efforts are excellent examples of attempts made to bring modular construction into the construction field, they, as a group, illustrate the diversity of approaches that have been considered to attempt to resolve and reduce the complexity of construction.
As will be appreciated, the difficulties of forming prefabricated horizontal surface, such as roofs and floors, is substantially greater than the difficulty surrounding the prefabrication of vertical surfaces, such as walls. This is brought about by the fact that horizontal surfaces tend to be load-bearing and tend to be in the form of spans supported only periodically.
One objective of this invention to provide a new modular design which lends itself to prefabrication and to ready assembly into horizontal surfaces.
Another objective of this invention to provide horizontal surfaces formed from a plurality of these modules and to provide an integrated horizontal surface made up of a plurality of these modules with suitable connecting means.
An additional objective of this invention to provide a means of constructing horizontal surfaces using these components.